In an unusual step, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke spoke out against the system of ankle bracelets and electronic monitoring currently in use in the region.
She said it is not effective and her office will be seeking detention in all cases that warrant it.
The announcement comes as the man who killed one Chicago police officer and severely injured another makes another court appearance.
“The electronic monitoring system is broken,” O’Neill Burke said. “It does not work.”
Burke on Tuesday lashed out at the system that she said made it possible for Alphanso Talley to disregard his monitor and allegedly continue a crime spree that ended in the shooting death of Chicago Police Officer John Barthelomew and the severe wounding of his partner.
“Electronic monitoring is not an alternative to detention. It does not keep people safe,” Burke said during a late afternoon news conference in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
She came to 26th and California after a second hearing for Talley, this one in front of John Fitzgerald Lyke, the same judge who had placed Talley on electronic monitoring after he was arrested for carjacking and armed robbery over the objections of prosecutors.
“If we ask for detention, we make sure we put every bit of information in front of a judge to establish why we believe this person represents a danger. As we did in this case,” Burke said.
Among those attending Talley’s hearing today, which Lyke continued until June, was wounded former Chicago Police Officer Carlos Yanez Junior. He said he has been frustrated by rulings from Cook County judges in cases like these.
“It’s always a continuance, the case, and the victims have to go through so much pain reliving the moments,” Yanez said. “It’s horrible.”
Burke said she has to work within the law, but there are things her office can do to make it harder for violent criminals to be released before trial.
“The states attorney’s office is going to continue to ask for detention each and every time we believe someone presents a danger,” she said.
Talley continues to be held on the arrest warrant generated when he failed to appear in March for a hearing on previous charges of carjacking and armed robbery. He is due back in court on murder charges in the Bartholomew case on Thursday.
